April 2003, 35 posts, 1653 lines
It's been awfull quiet here lately.
The silver lining to this cloud is that when things get really bad, art should get better.
Of course, at first, we can expect a lot of horrible, well-meaning but simple minded, "war is bad" art (Anyone remember May Stevens? I think that was her name). But then, when the riot police don't stay in the loop, when the Homeland Security enforcers are less shy about their now-legal ability to monitor communications, art may have a purpose.
Polish novels from the occupation(s), visual art from the late days of the Soviet Union, the cabarets of Nazi Germany - when the artists and audience had to develop a code to communicate - how can this be compared to our complacent pre-war drivel at, for example, "Really Real"?
Our censors now will be more sophisticated, forcing a generation of artists with no experience of oppression to scramble into new invention.
It will be interesting to see if there is anything to compare to the official support of Ab Ex. I rather doubt it - the current regime doesn't feel art is worth either repression or co-option. Maybe it will be Coca Cola or Nike or Starbucks who sponsors the distraction/propaganda campaign.
On the subject of well-meaning art - if you are interested in doing some performace activism, talk to me. I am only doing very gentle things - Skeleton Marching Band, Fuzzy Bunnies for Peace, but I'm looking for other ideas, too.
michael
That all sounds great. Let's elect a Nazi so the art will improve! If we could just get some stateside genocide going, everyone would be so much more productive!
C
Is not that the art will improve...it's that the worthless, self-indulgent art will become that much more obvious. And that's including the worthless, self-indulgent activist art.
dan
personally, I prefer that all art be made to promote a communist ideal, that way there'd be no room for self-indulgent art, or self-indulgent artists!
-cindy
--
cindy wrote:
-Dan
-cindy
Q: If three elephants are looking at Andy Warhol's Portrait of Mao, which one will like it? A: The one on the left of course.
-Diego
curt wrote: "That all sounds great. Let's elect a Nazi so the art will improve! If we could just get some stateside genocide going, everyone would be so much more productive!"
Well, I wouldn't go so far as calling him a Nazi (although there are some peculiar correlations). And, he wasn't exactly elected. BUT, he (mr. bush) does offer a lot to be really pissed off about. and, I guess if you need your art to be politically engaging, the current climate is fertile with topics. however, even with what I see as a crisis going on in the american political and social situation, I don't see why it is neccessary for art to be about this only. inevitably artists will, as will many others, be focused on these issues. but, for me, the opportunity to make a social and/or political message is not the only interesting aspect of art (in fact, it often leads to very uninteresting, heavy-handed, and/or naive work). I should clarify, that it is not the topic that necessarily makes a work of art boring, cliche, trite, naive or whatever - it is the art itself.
keri
Keri Butler wrote:
I couldn't agree with you more, Keri.
I think it's far more effective to get involved with the e-mail groups, like True Majority and Move-on, that have been so effective in mobilizing this country to protest than to show mediocre art in galleries that has been hastily assembled in response to a particular set of events. (Not that Bush has responded to anything, but in the long run I believe that effective protest does influence events.)
-- Claire Krantz
Michael B: I need to know more about Fuzzy Bunnies for Peace! Please advise.
Barbara Koenen
Mikebulka at aol.com wrote:
I hate to disappoint, but I think it'll all be forgotten soon enough. It's the "conservative" fools turn to drive the bus. But in a little while it'll be the "liberal" fools turn, again. That's the way we like it, I guess. Everything keeps changing but not much ever really changes.
Some Iraqis will be dead. Some soldiers won't come home to dinner anymore. Only their families will miss them. The rest of us will forget them in a few weeks. What can art say about any of this anyway? Who would care for more than the three minutes they were standing in front of it? You wanna make art? Make art. You wanna change the world, go find the universe where you get to be God. You wanna bitch about why this one is the way it is, please take it somewhere else. The rest of us got our own problems.
Mike, thank God there won't be any big anti-war movement in art - who needs all that adolescent whining? Art has enough of that crap already, don't you think?
Dave S.
Please, Sir, do yourself a favor and suicide yourself.
What a torture is must be to live without hope, without optimism, without love for your fellow humans, without joy. What possible need could you have for history or art or any human endeavor when you have a problem like this.
Farewell, stranger!
their families will miss them. The rest of us will forget them in a few weeks. What can art say about any of this anyway? Who would care for more than the three minutes they were standing in front of it? You wanna make art? Make art. You wanna change the world, go find the universe where you get to be God. You wanna bitch about why this one is the way it is, please take it somewhere else. The rest of us got our own problems.
that adolescent whining? Art has enough of that crap already, don't you think?
Hey Steve,
I'm happy here!
But I don't expect people NOT to shoot each other for stupid reasons. I don't expect presidents to be wise and kind like on the TV. I don't even think I know better how it all should be! I'm just one fool among hundreds of millions, and I LIKE it like that! *smile*
Shut up and make art, if that's what you want to do. What's with all the whining?
Dave
Trying to withdraw from the fray is an easy defense mechanism. Just watch the idiots fight it out amongst themselves;it has nothing to do with me.
The problem is that it does have to do with me. Not whether a Ford or a Chevy is driving the government, but whether or not there are riot police on the streets of my city, whether or not the police can shut down a planned peaceful demonstration with a few well-placed threatening phone calls.
Too many artists or former artists (Dave, I love you, but...) see themselves as Pythagoras or whoever it was who died asking the Roman invaders not to disturb his circles, or the Polish piano player from the recent movie. My art (or philosophy or science) above all.
This is very romantic, and it is true that art, science and philosophy have survived the Dark Ages and innumerable local repressions. It is imperative to preserve the culture we seek to protect. Still, I don't know any Pythagorases, nor have seen any art for which it is worth ignoring encroaching Fascism.
Artists can be the canary in the cave, using their skills and sensitivity to alert the populace to a threat; sign on for short-term personal gain with whatever program will give them the show or sale or whatever trinket they crave; or withdraw into self-complacency.
Yes, as I said in my first post post, there will be some simplistic (whiney) art. It's a phase; we'll live though it. With luck we won't have to live though a time of coded art as communication and can get back to critical acclaim for trivial knicknacks -a sign of the decadence that is the exemplar and possibly the goal of uncontested freedom.
michael
Mike,
I wasn't necessarily proposing inaction. When the bully boys come to your town, it's time to act, or they will. And they won't even try to be fair about it. And if you feel the need to pre-empt them, before they get to your town, so be it. Although, then I'd begin to worry about your becoming the very bully boys you propose to pre-empt.
But what does any of this have to do with art? If you want to fight the bully boys, then fight them. If you want to make art, make art. But fighting them BY making art seems a mighty ineffectual choice. If the bully boys could appreciate art, they wouldn't be bully boys to begin with. But they've rejected that ability long ago. So the only use such artwork would serve is to awaken the unaware.
Art is certainly about awakening the unaware, among other things, but in the case of such a supposed emergency, it's too subtle, too intellectual, too elitist, and too obscure. It's like trying to mime "fire" in a burning theater. It just ends up looking foolish if it gets noticed at all. If things are as bad as you say, then it's time to put the art down and find a real weapon. If things aren't that bad, then maybe it's not time to be miming "fire" in the theater, after all.
Life is violent. Life is brutal. Life is unfair. If this is what you want to make art about, I don't think you're telling anyone anything they don't already know. We live here too, after all. If you're trying to tell us we should be doing something about it, then why are you not doing something besides telling us what we should be doing? If you want to be an activist, then act, don't talk (paint, sing, dance, mime, ...). Art is a reflective endeavor, it looks foolish when people try to make it reactionary. It just ends up looking like 'whining'.
Dave S.
It seems to me that we're talking from a culture that, after 20 or so years of talking the game of combining art and life, still separates culture from our civilization. In our culture, art is a luxury that is thrown away when the going gets tough. In contrast, I was very moved, years ago when visiting Tibet during some particularly terrible repression by the Chinese, that in spite of their poverty and the violence done to their institutions, I still saw Tibetans carrying on their cultural production: painting murals on their temple walls, making and displaying things like prayer flags, wearing elaborately made tribal dress; writing and preserving their sacred writing.
There are a
lot of ways to preserve our way of life, and they are all valid. We should
not be fighting among ourselves about throwing out certain activities as
inappropriate to our time. While we fight for civil liberties, we must not
throw away all the tools at hand: political art, activism, and
contemplative art. If we throw away our souls, what is left? Do we want to
be Bushies - making war and not preserving the peace?
-- Claire
Krantz
This is getting rather absurd - as though one has to choose between the life of Malcolm X or Morandi and anything in between is just likely to be "too subtle, too intellectual, too elitist, and too obscure" This is bullshit. Right now there is an astounding range of art practice that seamlessly blends art, activism, ethics, aesthetics, subversion, social work, environmentalism, and so on. There are a lot of artists employing an extremely rich range of strategies intended to better integrate art and ideas into the lives of people that don't normally seek it out, as well as to effect change - if only in small but important ways - that do have actual ramifications in peoples' lives and that do have actual (if often small) implications in the world.
Just a few diverse examples of this work would include things like: the group Wochenklausur in Austria, the group N55 in Denmark, Aaron Gach and the Center for Tactical Magic, web archives like The Incomplete encyclopedia of Urban & Adventurous Artists (filled with relevant examples), the Mobillivre Bookmobile project, Nils Norman, some of Mark Dion's projects, Dan Peterman, Mad Housers, and on and on and on. Hell, I'd even throw in the part of "Bowling for Columbine" where Michael Moore brings the two Columbine victims to K-Mart and winds up coming away with getting the store to stop selling bullets. He's a film-maker and can be as creative in both his art and activism as any other artist or activist one might mention.
Another more local example: in Chicago 2 weekends ago Laurie Jo Reynolds and others organized the project "Ask Me!" at the Cultural Center which was a tremendously great experience. Essentially a curating of people and their various areas of expertise. The project had a thoughtful and coherent aesthetic structure (a room outfitted with a series of booths like the one Lucy has in Snoopy comics), a diverse and spirited array of participants, and wonderful opportunities for exchange, learning, experiencing the ideas of others, and social interaction. I stayed for 2 hours and felt like I barely had a chance to absorb anything because the project was so rich. How often does that happen?
It often seems that when any type of political art gets mentioned on Othergroup, people either bring forward the image of a naive kid with blue hair holding up a 'No Blood for Oil' sign, or we get reminded about Barbara Kruger again. There is a new canon of this kind of work. There is a huge range of practice, and many subtle ways of integrating a concern with our increasingly repressive political reality into one's art that is not merely whiny and reactionary. Artists are also constantly given the opportunity to push at the institutions they are asked to be a part of - there are lots of small but important ways one can do this to make things a tiny bit less repressive, unethical, authoritarian, stupid etc. But again, if you wanna propose these unrealistically extreme positions - that one either needs to kill the president or retreat to a cave and make wall drawings of bats, then you will never see the potential that is available to effect change on any level - even the smallest one.
Of course I don't think art is going to stop the war, nor do I think protests will, but it could make the protests themselves a lot more visually dynamic. Why not bring more creativity and artistic invention to these large spirited gatherings of people? A lot of people haven't had much head space for going to galleries lately - why not insert some creativity into other places like Federal Plaza? Hey, it would give people something to look at besides unbathed kids trying to pitch everyone copies of the Revolutionary Worker (heh heh, sorry).
There were two highlights of the protest last Saturday. One (which was not very artistic I suppose) was the former Death Row inmate Aaron Patterson shouting the most vitriolic and profane bit of public speaking I've ever heard - a man who just finished losing 12 years of his life, now surrounded by hundreds of cops, acting like he had nothing to lose and telling a few thousand people to watch out that the motherfucking police horses don't get their shit all over their feet while we are taking to the motherfucking streets. That was fun. The other highlight was hearing that skeleton marching band play "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath for no apparent reason at all. It filled me with feelings of joy that we could be in the streets hearing such a thing. But as any Sabbath aficionado would tell you, "War Pigs" would have been a much more appropriate choice.
Marc
Dave Stull wrote:
Mike,
I wasn't necessarily proposing inaction. When the bully boys come to your town, it's time to act, or they will. And they won't even try to be fair about it. And if you feel the need to pre-empt them, before they get to your town, so be it. Although, then I'd begin to worry about your becoming the very bully boys you propose to pre-empt.
But what does any of this have to do with art? If you want to fight the bully boys, then fight them. If you want to make art, make art. But fighting them BY making art seems a mighty ineffectual choice. If the bully boys could appreciate art, they wouldn't be bully boys to begin with. But they've rejected that ability long ago. So the only use such artwork would serve is to awaken the unaware.
Art is certainly about awakening the unaware, among other things, but in the case of such a supposed emergency, it's too subtle, too intellectual, too elitist, and too obscure. It's like trying to mime "fire" in a burning theater. It just ends up looking foolish if it gets noticed at all. If things are as bad as you say, then it's time to put the art down and find a real weapon. If things aren't that bad, then maybe it's not time to be miming "fire" in the theater, after all.
Life is violent. Life is brutal. Life is unfair. If this is what you want to make art about, I don't think you're telling anyone anything they don't already know. We live here too, after all. If you're trying to tell us we should be doing something about it, then why are you not doing something besides telling us what we should be doing? If you want to be an activist, then act, don't talk (paint, sing, dance, mime, ...). Art is a reflective endeavor, it looks foolish when people try to make it reactionary. It just ends up looking like 'whining'.
Dave S.
Marc writes:
Yup, and about one out of maybe 2500 people are ever going to go see any of it.
Yup, I'm sure the folks who voted for George Bush, and will vote for him again next time, have heard all about this stuff. Marc, you're living in fantasy land. Major cities in the US and around the world had major demonstrations against the war in Iraq, and it got a total of about twenty minutes air play on TV (where anyone will actually see it). All that effort, and it's already mostly been forgotten. Who you kidding? At least the protesters were doing something. No one pays attention to artists even in the good times, so who's looking at them (but each other) when times are so funky? I'm sorry Dude, I'm glad you want to try and do "good stuff" with your life and your art, but you're dreaming if you think anyone is really watching. If you want to change the world through artifice, you better get on the TV. Because that's the only place anyone is looking, except for a few oddballs that already agree with you.
Dave
Dave, Can you offer anything that is actually constructive or useful? Can you give a concrete example of anything creative happening the world that you think is valuable and is reaching large numbers of people and having any kind of positive effect on people?
What are there, about 5 billion people in the world? That's a pretty good ratio - I'll take it. What do you offer people? Do you assert yourself in the world in ways other than posting on Othergroup? You continually sound like a person who has made your mind up about everything and can't entertain new possibilities. How fun!
Again, pick the most extreme and impossible thing you can think of as a way of writing off any reason to act differently or try something new. As though swaying tens of millions of people in one swoop is the agenda of any of the artists I mentioned. They are actively trying to find new ways to be artists. Are you even willing to consider that it might be worthwhile to try something different? To try different strategies for how to get your ideas out into the world where more people (and more diverse groups of people) will see them than in the gallery districts?
This is as tired as it gets - the notion that without TV exposure nothing is possible and no one sees anything, - this lame silly idea that change never happens on any level without the involvement of TV is so old. Not everything revolves around TV or happens because of it. Thousands of people do things and get together and argue with each other and take political action etc. all the time without being guided by what TV tells them and without getting attention from the media. Who cares if the assholes at the networks and Clear Channel don't think our culture is newsworthy? That doesn't mean it isn't seen by anyone. Hundreds of thousands of people see things every day that are never televised or presented thoughtfully by the media - that doesn't mean they aren't affecting and transformative things to have been a part of. How many of the hundreds of events listed in the Chicago Reader every week and attended by thousands in this city are considered newsworthy by TV?
Are people watching much of any culture that I care about on TV? The Simpsons is pretty good sometimes but for the most part, no (Except rare events like Frederick Wiseman's amazing documentaries such as "Domestic Violence parts 1 & 2" which were on PBS for 6 hours last Saturday - another one of our country's great artists that I'm sure you will happily argue is having no impact on anything whatsoever).
I gave a list of artists who are doing something in a way that makes it impossible to separate out the elements of activism and protest from their work. If you are ignorant of their work, that's fine - just admit it but at least consider the possibility that there might be ways of being a person in the world and an artist and an activist at the same time that you haven't thought about yet.
There are a million ways to reach and affect people and gradually this does happen in very large numbers - perhaps not always through every project or through each person I mentioned, but collectively through a lot of artists who are taking a more expansive way of working into consideration and acting on that. Things do have a ripple effect and it's not always fast or dramatic. Artists are getting to do things now at large museums and institutions that those institutions would never have been open to if previous generations of artists didn't push at the boundaries and if current generations weren't also willing to take chances. And there is a ton of mind-blowing work happening with no official support that is no less empowering for those who experience it. If you've given up on the possibility (and reality) that art and ideas can reach large numbers of people in new ways - ways that perhaps you haven't thought about - that's your problem.
bye bye, Marc
Dave
Dave Stull wrote:
Marc writes:
I think it was Ghandi who once said that in the grand scheme of things, nothing any one person does will ever really matter much ... yet it matters greatly that each one of us does something. This is probably as true of art as it is anything.
I think you're seeing extremes where they weren't intended; maybe it's the way I write. I am not suggesting that people shouldn't make art, or that art is pointless because so few people experience it (and this is really only true of fine art). What I am suggesting is that art is just art. It has it's limitations, and because of these limitations, it's not a practical method for political activism. In fact, the the artifice itself is often a distraction from the cause. Not to mention that it seems pretty hypocritical for someone to paint pictures about how we should be saving the world, while they're painting pictures about how we should be saving the world.
I really don't know where you're getting this from. What is extreme about pointing out that most of the american public have nothing to do with the world of art and artists, and frankly thinks they're a bunch of fools and flakes? And this includes most of the people who voted for George Bush, and who will do so again. I'm not disparaging art, or your attempts to use art to make the world a better place. But I don't think it's extremist to point out that the world of art and artists is a very small world, and often an isolated one. Yet another reason for it being a lousy method of political activism.
OK, that's over stated. But for most people on Earth, the most dominant art forms are by far movies and music. And in fact I think these really can be used successfully to inspire political action, or at least to inspire people to consider a political issue. I really do think that trying to paint paintings about saving mankind from it's own madness is like trying to mime "fire" in a crowded theater. If you intend your art to convey a political message that you want to be heard and understood clearly by a lot of people, you're going to have to employ the appropriate means for doing it. You're going to have to shout.
There are as many ways of being an artist as there are people who make art. But all things have their limitations, and that includes art. What art is really good at is producing vehicles for contemplation. What art is not good at is putting out fires. I think political activism is more like putting out fires than it is contemplative. I have seen a lot of artwork over the years, and political art usually sucks, because it's not a good contemplative vehicle, and it's not good at putting out the fires either. Oh, but I'm sure your friends are the exception. *smile*
Dave S.
Dave, I'm sort of guessing that you are an extremely cynical old man and that at this late stage perhaps you are pretty much unwilling or incapable of looking into anything beyond what you already know. Maybe you're dabbling in some art of your own that you've been making on auto-pilot for the last half-century. Not one example I gave was a painter, because again, I'm talking about something different... work that functions differently and allows for different social and conceptual possibilities. Not preachy whiny reactionary poltical art that pretends to acheive something it never could, but realistic considered possibilities for new ways of living and creating - art that exists in that space between putting out fires and contemplation and allows for different social situations and experiences. But you know how it all works based on what you've seen so there's no point in trying to share. I think you are too closed to consider a new idea. Steve was harsh enough to suggest that you commit suicide, but I would allow for the possibility that you may already be dead.
Marc
I think it was Ghandi who once said that in the grand scheme of things, nothing any one person does will ever really matter much ... yet it matters greatly that each one of us does something. This is probably as true of art as it is anything.
I think you're seeing extremes where they weren't intended; maybe it's the way I write. I am not suggesting that people shouldn't make art, or that art is pointless because so few people experience it (and this is really only true of fine art). What I am suggesting is that art is just art. It has it's limitations, and because of these limitations, it's not a practical method for political activism. In fact, the the artifice itself is often a distraction from the cause. Not to mention that it seems pretty hypocritical for someone to paint pictures about how we should be saving the world, while they're painting pictures about how we should be saving the world.
I really don't know where you're getting this from. What is extreme about pointing out that most of the american public have nothing to do with the world of art and artists, and frankly thinks they're a bunch of fools and flakes? And this includes most of the people who voted for George Bush, and who will do so again. I'm not disparaging art, or your attempts to use art to make the world a better place. But I don't think it's extremist to point out that the world of art and artists is a very small world, and often an isolated one. Yet another reason for it being a lousy method of political activism.
OK, that's over stated. But for most people on Earth, the most dominant art forms are by far movies and music. And in fact I think these really can be used successfully to inspire political action, or at least to inspire people to consider a political issue. I really do think that trying to paint paintings about saving mankind from it's own madness is like trying to mime "fire" in a crowded theater. If you intend your art to convey a political message that you want to be heard and understood clearly by a lot of people, you're going to have to employ the appropriate means for doing it. You're going to have to shout.
There are as many ways of being an artist as there are people who make art. But all things have their limitations, and that includes art. What art is really good at is producing vehicles for contemplation. What art is not good at is putting out fires. I think political activism is more like putting out fires than it is contemplative. I have seen a lot of artwork over the years, and political art usually sucks, because it's not a good contemplative vehicle, and it's not good at putting out the fires either. Oh, but I'm sure your friends are the exception. *smile*
Dave S.
Steven Anderson wrote:
Please, Sir, do yourself a favor and suicide yourself.
Cindy wrote:
Steve this is really crass and inappropriate. If you don't respect a person's position, the worst thing you can do is drop to their level, or, as you did in this case, drop _way_ below it.
Cindy also wrote:
Thank you marc!
Marc writes:
Stop telling me who you think I am. It's just a cheap way of making me out to be inferior so you can feel smart. It makes you look foolish.
Even if you have invented this new utopian form of art, and I (being old and blind and feeble-minded) am one of the few humans left on Earth who is unaware of this new wonder art, that still would not change the physics and the limitations of the people looking at it. It's very difficult to inspire people to action. The advertising industry has been trying to do it for centuries, and I'm betting they've expended a lot more energy and resources on it than your "wunderkind" have. The thing is that when people don't want to hear something, it doesn't matter how eloquently you say it, they still won't hear you. And when people want to hear something, it won't matter how poorly you say it, or even if you said it at all, they will hear what they wanted to hear, anyway. Only once in a great while are people actually open to hearing something new, and even then they are very likely to dismiss or forget it a few hours later. This is not me being cynical. This is just how we humans are.
Inspiring others to political action takes an intense and pointed effort, a consolidated and persistent message, and ultimately has to connect with something that people wanted to believe or do all along. Advertising agencies can mount such a campaign, political parties and governments can mount such a campaign. I have a VERY difficult time even imagining artists mounting such a campaign. It didn't happen even during the Viet Nam war, when there were far more people against the war, and a far longer time for those artists against the war to consolidate a campaign. It didn't happen because artists just don't work that way. They are individualists by nature. And even if they had mounted some sort of campaign for political action, it would have gone nowhere unless the viewers were already predisposed to take whatever action was being suggested.
You are correct in that I don't believe anyone has reinvented the artistic endeavor, recently, and that this new invention can somehow circumvent human nature. I suspect you are buying into your own hype, and that your new wonder art is not really anything new at all. If you're young, maybe it's new to YOU, however. But who knows. I'm old. If I'm wrong it sure wouldn't be my first time.
Dave S.
Dave, I'm no endlessly romantic idealist or starry-eyed utopian dreamer which is why I cited examples (not of wunderkind but of people mostly older than my 32 year old self who've been around for a while) of artists who are working in reasonable thoughtful ways that are effective within the measured goals their work establishes for itself. I'm not talking about massive elaborate casts of thousands political campaigns that require the organizational skills of a presidential election or advertising projects with multi-million dollar budgets. I was alluding to or referencing mostly smaller endeavors that can repeat themselves over and over again and have a gradual and possibly sustainable impact on some people's lives. I'm much more interested in micro-gestures that actually work than gargantuan utopian impossibilities that are doomed to fail (although I thought that recent Archigram show was filled with some terrific ideas even if they never got to make any of them). There are lots of small and mid-size projects that are effective within what they set out to do. People Powered's much discussed "Loop" project is a pretty good example. It works well within its means. Another good successful local example might include Haha's "Flood" project for Culture in Action about 9 years ago. But I'm not going to do a book report for you on all of the vital intelligent experimental art with some political motivations that is going on globally. If you give a shit about any of this, I'm sure you've heard of Google and the library.
I definitely don't give a fuck about arguing for newness or for the genius of the young because I'm not talking about that either. I just think you sound like a tired old curmudgeon who has given up - whether you are actually old in years or still make art is irrelevant. There are lots of social and artistic experiments from the 1960's and 70's that could benefit from being repeated in our current world (perhaps, for example, some of Marie Shurkas' environments with animals, or Palle Nielsen's play spaces for kids that he realized at a Swedish museum in 1968). I do think, for what it's worth, that if you look around you can find lots of artists currently working that are reconfiguring things in ways that are quite new, or at least, pretty damn vital. Some experiments are also more interesting or relevant to repeat than others. I don't need to see another student make an abstract expressionist painting but if someone wanted to try to redo something like a Gordon Matta-Clark cut out on an abandoned building I'd definitely check it out.
I _do_ think you can catch people off guard and circumvent the more base aspects of human nature (particularly by working in public but I think it is possible inside institutions too). I think the people wandering around the Cultural Center to see the Teddy Bear exhibit who may have stopped into the "Ask Me!" project could have easily found themselves in a compelling and unusual situation that they might have really enjoyed and benefited from.
This is my last post on Othergroup for a while. I have stuff to work on and have to go out of town soon. As Anthony Elms surely remembers from our Othergroup Steel Cage Match of last summer, these damn emails take a while to write. So to the Othergroup lurkers: if anyone else wants to argue with the Dave I would certainly invite them to step on up. He is awesome and articulate advocate for hopelessness, inactivity, staid expression, and curmudgeonry. Marc
Dave Stull wrote:
Marc writes:
Damn! At least I good at something!
*smile*
On Sun, 13 Apr 2003, Marc Fischer wrote:
Shees. But I'll chime in on the sentiment
(Dave's): IMHO, all art is political. You Yankees are such Puritan
moralists.
- /jno
I'm trying to do a small thing for a big cause. Is it Art? I don't know and don't much care.
Here's the text of a flyer I've handed out along with "Another Bunny for Peace" buttons.
I've designed a coloring book - would love to have someone do the drawings. We can always use more bunnies and ideas for Fuzzy Bunnies for Peace actions.
michael
Fuzzy Bunnies for Peace
Fuzzy Bunnies for Peace know that there are a lot of people who are opposed, for a variety of very good reasons, to this inhumane, illegal and expensive war, but are unwilling, or even afraid, to join in the recent mass demonstrations of opposition.
You may also be having trouble talking to your children about the frightening images and stories they cannot avoid.
We want to help make it safe to express a dissenting view, without the presence of riot police.
We want to help make it evident to the media and our elected leaders that the opposition to this war is a majority that includes families with children.
We want to give the children, and their parents, an alternative to the dangerously seductive "us vs. them" tactics-based slant of most media coverage.
Fuzzy Bunnies for Peace believes that, while there are very complicated details of politics, policy and economics, this war is so wrong that even a child can understand it.
We will occasionally stage very peaceful, friendly, opportunities for the expression of the simple idea that peace is good and invasion, destruction, oppression and exploitation are bad. We hope that, while the children are entertained and educated, we will have a chance to have an adult conversation with the parents.
If you want more information, we recommend the following web sites:
For frequent news updates: [http://chicago.indymedia.org]
Activist sites, most with local branches, Logan Square Against the War: [http://www.lsqaw.org]
Not in Our Name: [http://www.notinourname.net]
Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism: [http://www.chicagoantiwar.org]
United for Peace: [http://uofp.meer.net]
Vietnam Veterans Against the War [http://www.vvawai.org]
Campus Anti-War Network: [http://antiwarnetwork.org]
For a scary look into the future, New American Century: [http://www.newamericancentury.org]
Patriot II Draft Legislation: [http://www.dailyrotten.com/source-docs/patriot2draft.html]
Contact us at: BunniesForPeace at yahoo.com
We don't ask for money, only your support. We can always use more bunnies, and help with planning and producing projects, buttons, comic books. This project, though, is funded entirely from our own shallow pockets. Any donation to defray costs would be appreciated.
Not that I'm calling anyone here eyecandy...
Now dave, I must ask: why so sour?
It was hard to invent the automobile too, so I guess we just should have quit. Oh and those medical fixes for cancer and AIDS haven't proved so effective, I guess we'll shut down work on those too. Actually lots of activities are pretty difficult, I suppose playing Go Fish, skim-reading artforum and flash art at the newsstand, making bland tomato sauces and trying to pass them off for Italian cooking, and making sure that CTA vehicles run late are the only things in human civilization that are easily conquered so we should stick to those.
There is a lot of art going on that, good or bad, does not function on the old models. It is new, though it often looks kind of lumpy and old, usually. But hey, maybe if all those folks had a budget they could use all that fancy computer imaging equipment that gehry and serra are using for their stuff? Maybe then they'd get all the glossy covers and we'd see the work.
Now, lets dispel a few rumors:
1. the artworld is liberal. What is passed off as left leaning these days is very conservative when compared to even things spoken in the mideighties. There is a definite move to conservatism in general in the world. This is true in the artworld as well. It takes more than wearing clogs, shopping at thrift stores and whole foods to be leftist. it also takes more than disliking george bush and t.v. So this whole preaching to the converted thing always seems to ring a little hollow for me. I know I am more left leaning than many friends. I also now many friends are much more leftleaning than me. I also know I have worked on prep crews with people who (oh the horror) voted republican in the last election. There are also many fiscally conservative, hawkish democrats out there in the suburban wilds. (oh, it also takes more than buying leon golub's and barbara kruger's to be liberal. Don't want to forget to include collectors in this summary.)
2. Art viewers are liberal. Even if we take the negative view that no one looks at art or takes it seriously, then who the hell are all those people in museums? I don't recognize most of them. I'm willing to bet they aren't all registered libertarians or green party voters. So they might have a conflicting thought or two with some of the works on display. Some might not be from the country of the museum they are standing in.
3. Even the smallest museums get a wide variety, and fairly large audience in the door.
4. Even if some museum/gallery is only getting five people a week in the door, why are those people meaningless? Sure who wouldn't want to manipulate millions of people in ten minutes? (oh, wait, I wouldn't....) But the fact there are millions of people out there does not mean it is pointless to try and have an engaging reaction with the five individuals a week one has access to. And the statistical probability of those five individuals thinking exactly alike is very rare. Unless they are conjoined siblings, NSync, the backstreet boys, or some combination of the three.
5. again, I've said it before, politics and formalism are not that different in function as subject matter. If we are to be cynical and say it is pointless to make political statements because changing the mindset of everyone in...oh lets just say nebraska... is unlikely, it is just as pointless for me to want to change their mind about what a formal relation is. I guess ryman should just go off himself now because millions are not going to be transformed by his investigation of painterly surface and the color white. How foolish of him to think that having a deeply transformative effect on the statistically minor group of people who buckle when they see his work was worth his time on the planet. Same for Agnes Martin.... boy what suckers they were. Hopefully reincarnation is a fact and they'll come back next time as something useful, like a can opener, or a doorstop. (sarcasm, for those not reading carefully.)
6. that art is meaningless in society. Sure art has a very conflicted relationship to the social sphere, particularly here in the states. The fact that people do get outraged at a show like Sensation, or laugh weekly at the horrid descriptions of (on occasion horrible) art written into the News of the Weird column, or stand in line for hours for Matisse/Picasso (hey, that pablo fellow made quite a few political works didn't he? fool.) proves it has some worth. Even if it is only as an ideal whipping post or gorgeous wallpaper. Look at Thomas kincaid (sp?) that stuff means a lot to a great many people. And it is art.
I'm not like that, then again many have screamed at me for being inhuman. I guess I should have gotten the clue.
I guess all those thousands of dollars that seth siegelaub raised from the art community to print flyers, take out advertising, post billboards, and organize rallies are just a bizarro revisionist history? I guess also that robert morris just used a secret self-invented photoshop program is 71 to print all those photographs of himself with his students and the hudson dance company on the steps of various public buildings undertaking creative, and other just good 'ole fashioned, protests.
I guess that siegelaub's work to organize (and actually run) a free library of resources about mass communication techniques in some 89 countries, with a particular interest in the "3rd world" that anyone could contribute to, and anybody could borrow from is similarly false. The idea was to make a storehouse available so that anyone wanting to try and learn how to use the wide plethora of mass communication formats would have access not just to the know how of how it works, but the specific conditions in each part of the world that would determine accesibility.(It used a very extensive mailing list and operation for the exchange of the materials.) He only gave it up in the late eighties, turning the materials to a dutch organization that supposedly was going to keep it going. It has gotten a little unwieldy as one could imagine.
Now true, siegelaub was a curator, not an artist, so maybe the artists really are unable to organize and think like that.
a
I lied, I got this and thought it should go to Othergroup - if only for Bulka's possible enjoyment. I'll go back into hiding after I hit send. This is a really nice strategy. Marc (was forwarded to be so I'm not sure of the source)
Mock Pro-War Rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
With the anti-war movement in Milwaukee lacking a significant and consistent showing, when the Milwaukee police department tickets motorists who drive by anti-war rally’s and honk in support f the protesters, in a time when the war is televised like a sporting event, a small group of Milwaukee artists, musicians, and outcasts decided to stage a mock pro-war rally to subvert the right!
The street theater action was committed on April 4th in near blizzard conditions when 20 “fanatical pro-war” supporters occupied the opposite side of the downtown street to rally in support of the war and oppose of the peace activists who gather every Friday for the weekly peace vigils.
The 20 “pro-war” supporters dressed in suits, waved American Flags, chanted slogans in fierce support of war, death, and killing. Rush hour traffic drove by and honked in approval to the flags and signs that read: “Freedom Is The Enemy”, “Get A Brain Morans”, “Iraq Out Of Iraq”, “Draft My Child”, “Send Our Infants”, “Soccer Moms For Blood”, “War Is Peace”, “I’m Pro-Life And Pro-Death”, “Stop Reporting The Facts”, “Peace Is For Pussies”, “Bush Is The Savior”, “This Is No Time For Thinking”, “Pro-Bush Lesbian”, and “Ask Me About My Baby Killing Honor Student” among other slogans.
Before the event the local media were called and told about the “Clear Channel” sponsored pro-war rally. The reporters failed to get an interview from the pro-war fanatics because every time they approached the demonstrators they chanted “Boycott The Liberal Media!”. The riot cops were very confused by the heartfelt chants of “We Love The Police State!”. And the anti-war protesters were perplexed by the “All We Are Saying Is Give Death A Chance” chorus.
A few on-lookers with their jaws dropped may indeed never visit Milwaukee again, but all told the “Pro-War” reaction was a smashing success that demonstrates the kind of gung-ho patriotism that would make George W. proud.
a writes:
You seem to be implying that I have suggested that artists should stop making art because it's an ineffectual method of inspiring political activism. How you came to this conclusion, I don't know. Perhaps this is yet another example of how people see what they want to see in spite of what is actually in front of them. I have posted several times now that I was not suggesting that artists stop making art, or even that they stop making political art. All I've suggested is that art (particularly fine art) is a poor tool for inspiring political action and that if one wished to inspire political activism, they would be more successful using a better tool.
a writes:
There is nothing new under the sun, and yet everything is always new. I just depends on who you are and how you look at it. But I will say this. Artists who are trying to make the next "new" art are chasing fool's gold. Novelty is like dope. It feels good for a moment and then leaves you craving another fix. And it does the same thing to your audience. Look at the fashion world and see what the addiction to novelty has done to them. It's already infected much of twentieth century art. Modernism was basically the pursuit of novelty by reduction. And by the late 60s it had reduced itself to nothing. It's been a dead horse ever since, but the american "art world" had grown so addicted to it that it STILL hasn't fully let go. Even "post-modernism" is really just the art world in withdrawal.
I personally don't care if someone HAS invented the new wonder art for the 21st century. Novelty has no intrinsic value except momentary titillation, anyway. As far as the rest of your post, it all seems to be arguing against ideas that I didn't propose, so I'll let someone else play with them.
Dave S.
wow, I'm confused dave, I write responses to things that were written in your email, but they weren't things you said... I guess you have a virus, or a ghost in the machine. Get that looked at immediately!
Now, I was answering that despite your well rehearsed "miming fire" act, there are many ways in which political action through art, though difficult, can actually be a perfect medium for the job. You just don't know what the job is. This job is valuable. One of many that is needed at any particular time and place. Politically and aesthetically. I was not implying that you said they should stop. But you did hint that, because it was difficult, they should go do it through some other means and stop wasting everyone's time.
Art can be the perfect tool for a political message. Maybe the artist isn't concerned with converting people for the 2 minutes to 2 years it takes to make the piece, maybe they just want to express a relationship with the world, like all those other artists out there. And instead of freud, or green, or adolescent girls, or apples, or cute celebrities, or streets, maybe its the political life of the planet that interests them. And maybe they are political activists when they aren't making art, and maybe they use this knowledge in their art, but maybe they don't really see their art as pure activism that is even supposed to work on that larger level. Why is it so hard to accept that all political action doesn't have to be on the millions of people level? Or the 100% accuracy: "I changed everyone I spoke to" level. There are a series of grayed out levels between no political action, and only political action. Political actions do not only happen on a grand scale. Nor should they. In fact some politics are down right contradictory when you get down to it. (we are fighting a war, supposedly, for peace right?) So expecting every political thought to have a clear directive is simpleminded. Maybe some political activists want to activate people to think for themselves, instead of think just like them. Maybe that is what they are trying to do. Not make people run out of a theater.
Or, for another angle. If we think of activism as an action born out of a deep seeded belief in a cause, and to make a, in some manner, direct statement of that belief. People like ryman are indeed activists. ( "Activist: somone who takes militant action in the service of a doctrine." Fits minimalism, and pollock, and newman, and all those other formal hardheads pretty well.) Just not of the political variety. So are you saying it is pointless to be an aesthetic activist as well? Because he will not be able to convert most of his public that pure aesthetic abstraction is the most important force on earth?
Your cynical end game solutions make any kind of action a kind of suicide action that results in nothing but a circular mumbling. It implies there are no good tools.
It's like eating. The solution isn't to eat all the time, nor to eat none of the time. But to have a series of food intakes, at different levels, and differing degrees of nourishment, to keep a system going.
I was pointing out a series of counterclaims to the conventional wisdom of the political leanings of the artworld that are patently false, but drudged up again and again as evidence of how and why political art is some ugly stepchild to be thrown to the cellar. In various mesages did use some of them yourself.
There is a store house of items, stretching back centuries and before, that are not like each other. Each of these things is unique, and not like the other things. (didn't you ever hear the sesame street song?) Now true, we start accumulating categories, and just because something appears on earth doesn't mean it is unlike everything else on earth, but sometimes a person gets lucky. And a new thing is invented. It happens. And society wouldn't have all these items we use to survive if that didn't happen.
Creation and reception are two different activities. Just because a certain hungry crowd desires the constant new, and often finds it only through cultural amnesia, does not mean that nothing new is ever invented. It also does not mean that the artist was only chasing the new. Maybe they were actually following a set of beliefs that led to a new arena. Sometimes by accident.
Also the fashioned, memoryless, and seasonal artwold is made up of artists and all those others involved in the arts, but it is not necessarily the only product of the labors of the artists, and all the others involved. The artworld is not some monolithic block that only looks for novelty. It has cracks. There are individuals involved, some of whom get trapped, some of whom rise to the top, some of whom get spit out. Some of whom aren't looking for novelty, but recognize when something appears that does not function like the stuff in the room next door. Sometimes when the brightlights have gone elsewhere, the objects and actions are still left behind. And we can reassess the initial feelings, and see what they really do. If indeed they do anything.
Yes, we did end up with some truly new forms/way of thinking. And yes the novelty wore off. And yes the monthly tastemakers became addicted to the novelty drug. And yes items were made to try and create something new. And yes some of the items purported to be revolutionary, were really just the same ole thing. And yes you stopped caring. And yes I don't care that you stopped caring. And you know what happened? We were left with some damn fine artwork, not all of it by any means, but many amazing objects/actions that can now be appreciated despite the mechanized grinder that tried to deform these items when they first appeared. And many do not function the same way at all. In fact some even seem to contradict each other. But hey, that's what we got.
Just like the human body is not killed by everything it comes into contact with, and can survive illness and disease, sometimes worse for wear, so too those artworks are remainders beyond any daily grind they are subjected to. (No don't counter that everyone dies in the end. Because, that is where the metaphor fails, a lot of artwork has outlived its makers and supporters.)
People don't shuffle through museums because the objects are novel. Everything on display is dead. They go because despite that radioactive half-life when the work was a novelty, it turned out to be good, and they enjoy it, regardless.
Good for you. That's the way to be constructive!
Really? You did type (unless it was that virus/ghost of yours, or you are secretly ari f. and good at ignoring previous public statements): "I have a VERY difficult time even imagining artists mounting such a campaign. It didn't happen even during the Viet Nam war, when there were far more people against the war, and a far longer time for those artists against the war to consolidate a campaign. "
I countered that claim with two examples that proved you wrong, and a tangent.
This is getting very tiring.
Shame on me for suggesting that one use a hammer to pound a nail rather than a fork, I foolishly thought the fork wouldn't hammer in the nail very well, and that it wouldn't do the fork any good either.
Sure, art can be the perfect political tool, as long as maybe the artist isn't interested in making a specific political statement, and maybe he's really just making statements about the human condition and so maybe it's not really political art at all.
Why is it so hard to understand that to whatever degree you force a work of art to become a political message, you will deny it's ability to fulfill it's intended function (which is more universal than politics, and more contemplative than a 'call to action')?
And "aesthetic activist"? Give me a break!
I have no idea where you're getting this. Life is full of tools. Some work better for certain tasks than others do. It just makes sense to use the one that works best for the task you intend to perform.
The solution is to eat FOOD when you're hungry, not green plastic army men.
That's a fine speech. What we get out of this nonsense is art. I agree. But what matters in that art will not end up being the political messages, nor the novel technical tricks, nor the hip aesthetic philosophies, nor the romantic suffering of the tragic artist persona. What will matter about the artworks in the end is what they tell us about each other. The function of art never was it's "message", the real function of art is to let one human being see inside the spirit of another, and in so doing to give us a glimpse of our own. If you want to be an artist, do that.
Dave S.
so is your flawed thinking in terms of what "politics" is. And what political thought consists of.
Abraham Maslow: If the onlt tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Yo,
Way down below I've pasted an announcement from Spareroom, who are looking for new members. Check it out if you're into art and stuff.
The last paragraph of this announcement interests me:
I like the questions that this brings up and wonder what people involved in non-profits, out-of-pockets, or other for-profit organizations or initiatives might respond to it.
It seems important to be able to conceive of an economic model, to be able to place the work of you and your comrades in some economic context. It seems important to me, anyway, having a distaste for the default commercialism of the gallery world. It's not really important to talk about that distaste, we've heard it I think. What is important is to talk about what else we are doing, how else we are conceiving our economy. And I know that we have here, before, so lets do it some more.
My own production and that of so many people I know is basically what I think someone, maybe jokingly called, "anti-profit" (sorry, I think that was someone on othergroup, but I couldn't find it during a quick look at the archives, does anyone remember where that came from?). We work jobs that we mostly wish we didn't have to work at, despite the privileges and benefits that that job might afford us, in order to (1) survive and (2) maintain an autonomous spacetime continuum for our production or art or whatever (which of course can be some kind of collective endeavor and/or a more modern, lonesome affair). I talked to a dude who lives in NYC who basically said that maintaining that kind of autonomy there is a very difficult thing, so much so that non-profits and other efforts and orgs that depend on voluntary support just can't maintain. Sounds pretty shitty to me. I hate to see Chicago going that way, rents escalate, cheep housing gets harder and harder to find, people have to work two jobs and there's nothing left for the production we want to do, or we have to move out of the urban center or drop into some other, perhaps, marginalized manner of living, and that can be very destructive to the production we wanted to do in the first place. Is that what survival means?
I think a while back there was some brief discussion of how the non-profit gallery, those like N.A.M.E. (gone) or Gallery 312 (not gone) is not the most viable model in today's climate. This has to do, I suppose, with a shortage of public, er gov'ment funding for this type of work. Many of these places receive corporate funding don't they? That seems like it's probably not dependable or otherwise problematic. For one thing there are the potential conflicts of interest in political agendas. But I don't know much about what actually happens when a space like this goes out looking for money, and what kind of review process there is. I know that some of the small-scale, special exhibits at the Art Institute (museum) are forced to show work that supposedly addresses certain topics or subjects based on who is funding the shit, various, supposedly altruistic, corporate foundations, and family corporate foundations.
It seems that the university gallery might be threatened, at least in the case of the Art Institute, I've heard rumors that the SAIC galleries are being downsized.
Many of you reading this have the knowledge to address issues of economic modeling in a much more pragmatic and informed way that I'm capable of, so please speak up. It's a good time to share that knowledge. Some people are not in school, not working in academics, not in museums, not in the gallery world, or otherwise don't have access to the same sources and info that you have. Many people have no desire to be involved with the institutions that so many of us work for or go to school at. They miss out on the privileges that accompany that, but at the same time they are doing the important work of developing knowledge and resource bases less dependent on those structures. I think more of us, the ones who can "afford" to, need to follow their lead.
What interests me about the Spareroom model, which I don't totally understand, is the ostensible embrace of profit, maybe like a small-scale corporate model. It reminds me of something I seen Gregg Bordowitz say a while back. He was talking about how AIDS activists in Africa really ought to be seen as _the_ activist model by the (so called) anti-globalization movement, that these activists in Africa are talking about radical economic systems, micro-corporations, working the pharmaceutical industry over, importing their own drugs, basically producing their own systems of distribution. He's talking about activism. And there is no reason that we shouldn't also talk about activism (we do), scrutinize the ideas of activism, use them, work with them. Activism and art are cultural production. AIDS activism in Africa and here in the U.S. in the eighties and nineties, is maybe the most effective and vital grass-roots cultural production we've seen in recent times. It would be great if the "anti-globalization" and the new anti-war movement (which is hopefully bringing some more energy and participation to the prior mvmt.) were anywhere near as effective and vital as these AIDS activists, they can be. The most interesting art, for me, is art that is doing work with social and economic systems in the ways that modernists were doing work with form, color, technique and all that. Which isn't to say that I ignore, or don't enjoy color and stuff, or that it's not important to use these things when working with economic and social terms. But the knowledge base and rhetoric surrounding those modernist concerns is easily accessible, and taught at an early age (that is, to those with the privilege of some semblance of a public education system, though I suppose this is being dismantled too). Maybe what I want to say is that the rhetoric around grass-roots production and work with social and economic terms needs to be broadened. Doesn't it? These things need to be illuminated. Or, like, maybe I'm also trying to say that I think that what a lot of people want is to find something better than the out-of-pocket/anti-profit model, but also more interesting than the commercial gallery model, and something less dependent on public and corporate money than the non-profit gallery. Hey, rest assured, I love all these things, because I'm affraid I believe in art. But we are in a position to develop beyond this, and it's urgent. I know you have clue about what else is out there in terms of better economic models, I know you know where we can read more about it, I know you have ideas of your own, so quit holding back and tell us where we can read about it, tell us where we can see the art, tell us who rocks the alternative economy mic!
Thanks, Mike Woof
Spareroom Announcement:
PLEASE FORWARD TO ANYONE WHO MAY BE INTERESTED...
The Spareroom is looking for new members! Are you an inspired, creative artist in need of an open rehearsal space where you can also perform, exhibit and curate?
Join the Spareroom and become part of a vibrant, diverse community of artists.
The Spareroom, a cooperative space for emerging time-based artists, is located at 2416 W. North Avenue, on the corner of North & Western.
3 Membership levels: $100/month, use and average of 7-10 hours/week $75/month, use an average of 3-5 hours/week $50/month, use an average of 5-10 hours/month (we currently have openings in the $75 level)
Some of the Benefits of Membership: ˆÉ¬¢?ˆÇ¬¢ The most affordable space in Chicago for rehearsals and rental! ˆÉ¬¢?ˆÇ¬¢ Up to 10 hours/week in the space ˆÉ¬¢?ˆÇ¬¢ May curate shows in the space ˆÉ¬¢?ˆÇ¬¢ Participation in Spareroom group shows ˆÉ¬¢?ˆÇ¬¢ Be a part of a diverse community of time-based artists!
For more information, call Ania Greiner at 773/342-8917 or email ania13 at earthlink.net.
visit www.spareroomchicago.org
Our Mission: the spareroom is committed to showing and making time-based artwork that crosses disciplines and takes risks. we support our member artists by providing rehearsal, curatorial and exhibition opportunities. we support the time-arts communities by being a source for exhibition opportunities and a space for dialogue and community building.
Why We are a Co-op: Although Chicago has many traditional galleries and theaters, there are few spaces available for performance artists or other artists working in time-based interdisciplinary media to make and show their work.
Current political trends discourage artists from forming not-for-profit organizations or from relying on public grants or outside sources of funding. In order to remain viable and stable, it's more advisable for artists to adopt a for-profit cooperative business model that can ensure a financially independent organization. As a co-op, a community of artists can have ownership and responsibility over their work and working conditions on their own terms.
Need a break from art fair panic? Mope over to the Thompson Center:
To Commemorate The First Annual International Day Of The Politically Depressed
FEEL TANK CHICAGO HOSTS A PARADE AND DEPRESS-IN(1)
Where: Outside the State of Illinois Building (aka the James R. Thomspon Center, at the corner of Clark and Randolph, near Clark/Lake El)
When: Thursday, May 1, 2003, 4-6 pm
In solidarity with May Day(2), FEEL TANK CHICAGO(3) proclaims the First Annual International Day of the Politically Depressed.
We're overwhelmed by the detritus(4) of political life around us:
A new bloody occupation in the Middle East. Giant tax cuts for corporations and the rich. 40 million uninsured. Ashcroft.... Toxic environments. Racial profiling. The unliving wage. Endless war. Guantanamo. Kissinger.... Enron. American Airlines. Hounding of immigrants. Rumsfeld.... Dissent=treason? Dissent=terrorism? The evisceration of state budgets. The (in)justice system. Santorum.... Orange alerts. The de-funding of public education. Media monopolies and the squelching of debate. Rampant militarism. Fox News. WMDs? What WMDs? Habeas corpus? What habeas corpus?
How DID we get out of bed this morning?
FEEL TANK CHICAGO is a group of local activists, artists, and academics who are part of an international movement to analyze and counter the orchestration of public feelings in the political sphere. Depression is a political emotion. Apathy is a response. We're numbed, flooded, saturated, overwhelmed -- we're DEPRESSED -- we're politically depressed.
DEPRESSION IS OUR CALL TO ACTION BRING YOUR MEDS WEAR YOUR ROBES AND SLIPPERS ALL (LEGAL) FORMS OF SELF-MEDICATION WELCOME WE'RE DEPRESSED. WATCH OUT!
Sorry, the bottom of that message got cut off, here's the whole thing (I hope):
To Commemorate The First Annual International Day Of The Politically Depressed
FEEL TANK CHICAGO HOSTS A PARADE AND DEPRESS-IN(1)
Where: Outside the State of Illinois Building (aka the James R. Thomspon Center, at the corner of Clark and Randolph, near Clark/Lake El)
When: Thursday, May 1, 2003, 4-6 pm
In solidarity with May Day(2), FEEL TANK CHICAGO(3) proclaims the First Annual International Day of the Politically Depressed.
We're overwhelmed by the detritus(4) of political life around us:
A new bloody occupation in the Middle East. Giant tax cuts for corporations and the rich. 40 million uninsured. Ashcroft.... Toxic environments. Racial profiling. The unliving wage. Endless war. Guantanamo. Kissinger.... Enron. American Airlines. Hounding of immigrants. Rumsfeld.... Dissent=treason? Dissent=terrorism? The evisceration of state budgets. The (in)justice system. Santorum.... Orange alerts. The de-funding of public education. Media monopolies and the squelching of debate. Rampant militarism. Fox News. WMDs? What WMDs? Habeas corpus? What habeas corpus?
How DID we get out of bed this morning?
FEEL TANK CHICAGO is a group of local activists, artists, and academics who are part of an international movement to analyze and counter the orchestration of public feelings in the political sphere. Depression is a political emotion. Apathy is a response. We're numbed, flooded, saturated, overwhelmed -- we're DEPRESSED -- we're politically depressed.
DEPRESSION IS OUR CALL TO ACTION BRING YOUR MEDS WEAR YOUR ROBES AND SLIPPERS ALL (LEGAL) FORMS OF SELF-MEDICATION WELCOME WE'RE DEPRESSED. WATCH OUT!
Notes: 1. In the long tradition of teach-ins, sit-ins, kiss-ins, die-ins, barf-ins, and napk-ins. 2. Cancelled in China due to SARS. 3. Coming soon: www.feeltankchicago.net 4. Flotsam, jetsam, fallout, garbage, waste, trash, junk, shards, sweepings
This Boston Globe article makes mention of "International Day Of The Politically Depressed": [http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/110/focus/Crisis_theoryP.shtml]
On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, misterwolf wrote:
[http://othergroup.net/db/July2002.htm#459] "Beached whale not for profit" by elms, is as close as it comes. There are many anti's, but there aint no 'anti-profit' or 'anti profit' -- grepped back to Jan 2002.
HTH.